On the Ground

Our work is most powerful when focused on a targeted area. These case studies show how some of our clients have engaged us to take a hard look at a particular neighborhood and work with locals to make small development the default path forward.

Missing Middle Housing in Chattanooga

Working with the Lyndhurst Foundation and Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), we are paving the way for great infill development in Chattanooga. The goal is to make it easier to build multi-unit properties that improve their neighborhoods and allow the city to adapt to changing housing needs while honoring the best of Chattanooga’s built heritage.

Beautiful multi-unit properties like 1400 Duncan here are part of Chattanooga's built heritage. Our work is helping to make Missing Middle Housing such as this both legal and straight-forward for local small developers.

Goal: Make the Missing Middle Possible Again

CNE owns several properties in the Highland Park and Ridgedale neighborhoods, upon which they want to make it easier to build the best possible housing. The Lyndhurst Foundation has supported this goal by assembling an IncDev design team to essentially pre-package developments, from finance to floor plan, that would strengthen and beautify neighborhoods, be profitable for a builder, and meet housing demand.

Method: Learn from local, share from experience

Our design team, including Bruce B. Tolar, Architect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Kronberg Wall Architects from Atlanta and Brown Design Studio from Savannah, set to work with local implementers to create workable plans, construction estimates and development finance models. The team surveyed Chattanooga to find precedents of much-loved Missing Middle type buildings which would fit nicely in the target neighborhoods. They met with locals in the building trades, visiting job sites and getting continuous feedback, to set a realistic baseline for construction costs, timelines, and processes. The team then held meetings with various administrative departments to clarify purpose and identify red flags in the existing sphere of regulation that may inadvertently preclude development projects.

Outcome: Eager small developers and a city determined to support them

This project culminated in document which explained the value of Missing Middle housing and provided sample bank packages for folks interested in putting the proposed designs into action. The team then hosted a Small-Scale Development Training Workshop in October 2016, in which locals engaged in the first steps to make the Missing Middle their business. Local developers expressed strong interest in the Missing Middle housing plans proposed in the project document. The IncDev team also diagnosed some major touchpoints within municipal regulation that could make or break small development projects. As a result, city administrators are collaborating to find ways to fast-track the proposed Missing Middle housing and minimize some of the risks and expenses which disproportionately stymie small multi-unit developments.

Code Cracking in Kalamazoo

A dedicated planning official in Kalamazoo suspected something was awry with the city's zoning code when she noticed that the beautiful ideas presented in their Master Plan were not being built on the ground. In particular, she saw the Edison neighborhood as an area with lots going for it, but limited development interest. Her leadership brought us to Kalamazoo to host an Implementation Clinic alongside our Small Developer Training Workshop. We walked the streets of Edison and picked out a number of properties that on the surface looked like great development opportunities. Then, we combed through the zoning code and helped workshop attendees create project proposals for these properties in small groups. In this process, local folks were able to walk through their code and a development pro forma and identify zoning barriers that were explicitly preventing walkable, financially sound small development in Edison.

Ecosystem Coaching in Columbus, GA

A band of organizers, small developers, and city officials see great potential in MidTown Columbus, which sits between a rising downtown and sprawling city edge. We joined MidTown Inc. with the support of the Knight Cities Challenge Grant to create a year-long incremental development intervention.

Our work in Columbus began with many conversations, between business owners, developers, city staff, faith leaders, and neighbors. Beyond hosting talks and training workshops, we are helping to strengthen the small development ecosystem in MidTown by identifying concerns, bottlenecks, and contradictions across the network of people and touchpoints a developer interacts with while getting a project off the ground. Read more here.

Proactive Planning in Tigard

We are working with the City of Tigard, a first-ring suburb on the edge of Portland, OR to help them be proactive with their zoning amendments using a Stress Test. Tigard understands the importance of walkable neighborhoods, good urban design, and small scale development. As such, they have already brought in several top-notch planning teams to help them create a vision for their city that prioritizes sustainability and happy residents. Their challenge is now to make all of their planning cohesive and to ensure that the zoning ordinances support their plans.

The Stress Test target area in Tigard contains a collection of auto-oriented land uses, including regional shopping centers, medium to large office buildings, and a smattering of single family houses in between. Tigard is exploring how the existing land use pattern can evolve lot by lot with infill and adaptation to create a cohesive, pleasant, and walkable neighborhood. This target area is also preparing for the possibility of a light-rail connection to Portland within the next 20 years, and the impact those stations would make. Tigard has the foresight and desire to protect their local businesses and residents from the speculative inflationary effect that often accompanies rail investment. As such, the City is eager to make sure that small scale, local developers can participate in the build out of the rail corridor before, during and after such a project may occur.

This Stress Test involved identifying lots in the target area and working through hypothetical developments (ex. would a mixed-use fourplex or three-story walkup meet code and be financially viable in the current regulatory and market conditions). The IncDev team led staff and local property owners to recalibrate their code by playing the role of developers on paper. Secondarily, Tigard wisely worked with the IncDev team on their long-term vision, considering the impact of their planning should the rail project never materialize.